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Saturday, March 31, 2012

I love this age (minus the insane clinginess [is that not a word, spellcheck??]...but we'll just enjoy that while we can since before long she won't want anything to do with her MOM, yuck).

It's full of giggles and wonder and chubby fists and new milestones and personality (sadly, thanks to the teeth, it is not full of sleeping through the night). Chris asked me yesterday if we could just freeze time and all of us remain these ages forever, and I think I'd be tempted to follow through if I could Harry Potter that shit and make it happen.

People keep telling me "just wait" as in "just wait until she hits the terrible twos," but what's the point in that? I'd rather savor these moments than dread the next ones.

Except her first date. And the first time she goes out in a belly shirt. And when she learns to drive. I'm dreading those. But other than that.

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

You know that feeling you sometimes get when you look at your child? That swelling, full feeling in your chest? Those bubbles of...well...as cheesy as it is to say it, LOVE that damn near fills your heart to bursting? It's an actual physical ache, but an ache in a good way. A joyous, impossible way.

Does that feeling ever go away??? Does my mom still feel that when looking at her children, 30 years later? Does my mom's mom feel that when looking at her, 60 years later? Do the moments you feel that get further and further apart?

Monday, March 19, 2012

Does anyone else have the feeling that their entire pregnancy occurred in a Twilight Zone? And sadly the 21-and-under-crowd probably thinks of vampires and not Alfred Hitchcock when I say that, but rest assured I'm thinking more of the portly gentleman than the sparkling ones.*

I took my bike into the bike shop to get a tune up, and the owner asked when the last time I'd ridden it was.

"Um, not too long. I rode all the time last summer."

Pause.

"Oh, wait. No, that's not right. I was pregnant all last summer.** So it would have been the summer before that."

I had literally completely forgotten that the summer of last year I was pregnant. In my mind, the summer BEFORE that was last summer. And that happens all the time - someone will ask how long ago something occurred, and my answer will be X minus nine months. I mean, I remember being pregnant. But it's like it happened in a parallel universe.

It's very strange.

*Apparently Twilight Zone and Alfred Hitchcock Presents are two different shows that I've mind-melded into one.

**My mom wouldn't let me ride (adorably protective) and also it was 100 degrees at 8am pretty much every day of the summer so suck it.

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Part of being a mom is finding old pictures that you haven't looked at since dumping them in a "MISC" folder, amirite? No? Just me? I won't tell you then that we've taken pictures every week, but I haven't edited any in like ten weeks. I should catch up on that some day. Maybe when she's one.

These are from December. It's INSANE to think that was over two months ago. She wasn't even six months old yet.

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

There is something frightening about eight months old. Even though technically it's four months away, "eight months" sounds like "almost a year." And you, my tiny girl, can't be almost a year old. Every day I look at you and you're older, more toddler-looking. You're developing that lean toddler body and losing your chubby baby rolls. And on Tuesday, February 28, you woke up with a tooth. It wasn't there the day before (I know, since you spend much of the day chewing on various parts of my body). I spent the rest of the day frantically trying to take pictures and video of your gummy baby smile before the tooth shows itself fully. There's a commercial right now that implores the viewer to enjoy the moments at hand by saying, "There are only so many gummy smiles," and now even thinking of that makes me cry, because they're right, and the days of your toothless grins are over. I'm not ready for that! Sob. No, really. Sob sob sob sobsobsob.

What did we do this month? We went to Kansas City to meet that little dreamboat Weston. We went to Des Moines to hang out with your nana and uncles and aunts and ate at Zombie Burger, where you a) utterly charmed our waiter and b) made a huge mess with an avacado. We went to the Des Moines Science Center and Botanical Gardens, both of which you found fascinating.

with my mom

sleeping at ZombieBurger

in the hotel room in Des Moines

We are still taking swim classes, and to the casual observer it probably seems like nothing has changed since the first class, but you've learned to anticipate underwater dunks and will close your eyes and hold your breath.

We went to another hockey game. You quite enjoyed the screaming and ringing the cowbell. Go Mavs!

You hit one hundred and one milestones between seven and eight months. You army crawl everywhere, in hilarious a manner, as you drag one leg behind you like it's lame and use your two arms and other leg to scoot around (which leg you use varies depending on the day). We love to narrate your scoots like you're a wounded Civil War soldier: "Johnny, I...I can't feel my legs. Tell Mama I love her. Tell Suzy not to wait for me."

the first days of crawling

You climb. Literally, you climb on everything, a mini Sir Edmund Hillary. You scale the mountains that are mounds of comforter, knees, and backs while laying in bed with us in the mornings, usually using my hair as a grip. This has given me inch-long tufts of hair all over my head (hint: my hair was not meant to support the weight of a 19 pound infant). Speaking of hair, yours is starting to curl over your ears, and some days I feel like it's getting darker and some days I feel like it's getting lighter (exactly like your eyes, which are still a dark blue-gray). For now, it's settled into a beautiful light golden brown, with occasional reddish hints that appear in the sun.

(pictured is some bitchin' bedhead that you were sporting a few weeks ago)

You added three consonants to your vocabulary (which previously was all vowel sounds and screeching): m, b, and d. And of course, to the delight of your daddy, you strongly prefer your "d"s. You spend your days saying "da-da" over and over and over, whereas I don't think you've said "ma-ma" more than a handful of times, the day you first discovered your "m"s. We have hours of conversations that consist of: "Say ma-ma. Can you say ma-ma?" "Dada." "Try mama! Ma-ma." "Dadadadada!" "Mama?" "Dada!" You might like him better because he taught you to high five (Though you don't quite get it yet - but you will touch your hand to someone's hand if they hold it up and say, "High five!". Close enough!).

Several times, you've sat up from a laying down position, though I'm not convinced you entirely know how you did it. (Now, adding pictures to this letter just two days later: you definitely know what you're doing. My bad for doubting you.) You still want to stand all the time and will pull up to a stand on anything that might offer support (including my legs, chairs, backpacks, your car seat, your jumper, your crib, the dresser, and the back of your high chair.).

It's somehow shocking to walk into your room in the morning and see you standing up. You've taken it a step further, though, and added cruising and letting go to the mix. You will start at one end of the ottoman and be at the other end in seconds and I'm still not sure how you got there. You often completely let go and balance for a few seconds, not realizing that as an eight-month-old child you aren't supposed to be standing alone yet. Slow your roll, child.

eating quinoa, which looks like ants

And then there's the tooth (no picture of this, as I haven't even seen it yet - you won't let me look at it. But I can feel it!). For some reason, this more than anything else sends a pang through my heart. I know people whose babies got teeth at three months, so truly it doesn't MEAN anything. But it means everything too. A tooth. Little babies don't have teeth (except: see previous...I know they do, but in my mind they don't). Big girls have teeth. You aren't a big girl yet. You're still my tiny baby. But you're not a tiny baby. You're....you're getting to be such a big girl. And I'm not ready for that; I'm not prepared for that. I did everything I could to cherish and hold onto each baby moment but it passed so quickly. Entire months fly by and I wonder where they went and when. I pack away baby clothes and wonder when you were small enough to fit in them, and then I look at the size and they're 3-6 month and you just fit them just a few weeks ago. Were you ever truly that small? It feels like it was just a dream. I often ask my mom, "You remember this, right? You remember me being this small, despite 30 years and three other kids? I won't lose this entirely?" She says she remembers, but I have my doubts...I feel like I barely remember the newborn stage and like all that time slipped through my fingers.

I have hundreds (literally) of pictures, and I look at them and try in vain to recall what it felt like to have your tiny body curled on my chest back in July, and I hate that I can't recall it exactly. Hazy memories return on the rare occasions you'll let me snuggle you close now, or when I hold other newborns, but it's different. It breaks might heart that I might never again remember exactly how it feels to hold you, our first child, close, skin to skin, for the first time.

Trying to get a video of you laughing to send to your dad while we were in Des Moines

Don't get me wrong, I love eight-month-old you. You make me laugh every day, and everything about this feels right. Before I had kids, I always joked said that I felt like my calling was to be a mom, a stay-at-home mom with dozens of three kids running around. Other people had these lofty ambitions and wonderful goals, and I just wanted....this. Exactly what I have. I was talking to a good friend the other day, and she asked if I ever felt anxious about the massive task and responsibility that is raising a child. And oddly and honestly enough, I can say no.

I'm comfortable being a mom. This is the one role in my life so far that I've felt totally at peace filling. I've been anxious about a lot of things (Am I a good enough wife? Do I visit my grandma enough? Do I have enough money? Is driving this Chevy Tahoe going to ruin the environment?) but raising you is not one of them. Somehow, even in the throes of those first eight weeks when I was in near constant, scream-inducing pain from your bad latch, lazy eating, mastitis, and thrush, when nursing sessions took an hour and you wanted to nurse every two hours, when you woke up every two hours to eat and it was a dream to get rare instances of three hours of sleep...I still felt confident and comfortable and like I was in the right place (not to say that there haven't been moments of "What the hell am I doing?!?", because of course there have been). I don't know whether that's because I'm fulfilling that destiny for which I was meant, or whether it's because I read a million books on every known baby-related subject and educated myself to the point of ridiculousness (for years before I even was thinking about being pregnant), because you're just that awesome of a child, or if it's because my own mom was so amazing (so. fricking. amazing.), but whichever of those is to blame...this all feels just right.

To be clear, this feels right and I can picture this feeling right for the next eight or nine years. Once you hit the tweens, though....all bets are off. Somehow they snuck the "parenting a teen" line into the contract and I signed it without realizing. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. (I just noticed I joked about this in the last letter: it's either unoriginal or very true...or both!)

And to be even clearer, parts still suck. Teething? Sucks. Waking up at night several times because of teething? Sucks. Getting bitten? Sucks.